ELLY GRIMM• Leader & Times

The topic of a new USD 480 Central Office location came back to the board in another presentation during the most recent meeting of the USD 480 school board Monday evening.

After USD 480 Director of Federal Programs Sheri King introduced the members of the team who have been working diligently on this, USD 480 Director of Business Jerry Clay began the presentation.

“First off, we looked at what do we need in a district office?” Clay said. “We looked at the ESC building here and the current Central Office building and concluded we would need 11 administrative offices, 22 staff offices, a reception area. With training rooms we’d need a minimum of two of those, a board room with audience space, newcomer’s center adequate storage space.”

“When we looked at the training rooms, one thing we wanted to keep in mind is we wanted a large enough space that could accommodate perhaps 100 or 150 people since we do have trainings that large at times throughout the beginning of the year,” King said. “And then the other one would be a smaller one that could accommodate between 25 to 40 people.”

“As we were going around the community and looking at different properties that were available to us, some conversations sparked among us and additional enhancements we thought could be beneficial,” Carlile said. “Some things we came up with as a group included a possible health clinic for staff and the community, an additional family resource center, a fitness center, a forum for when the staff members are in training so they’ll be able to answer e-mails or phone calls they received while they were out. Also, we thought of a USD 480 store – families are coming into the community and district and if they’re enrolling at, say, Cottonwood, we’d be able to say we have t-shirts available for purchasing, things like that.”

“These enhancements weren’t originally part of our discussions when we were thinking about square footage and all that, but these were just some ideas we thought could be nice additions to the space if we choose,” King said.

USD 480 Federal Programs Secretary Claudia Bach then talked about the different building options.

“We went around and we were told to think outside the box,” Bach said. “We looked at different buildings in Liberal and the buildings we looked at included the Knights of Columbus building, the former Bank of America building, the Liberal Family Chiropractic, the Harley-Davidson building, the Hatcher Warehouse, the Epworth Allied Health Center, South Middle School, McKinley Elementary, Lincoln Elementary, and of course we thought of new construction as well since we have district-owned property to do so.”

“After we went through and looked at all these different facilities, we came back as a committee and came up with the pros and cons for each one,” King said before taking some questions from the board.

As this was an information-only item, no action was taken as far as making an official decision on the matter.

“When you were talking about the number of offices you’d have for the staff you need, what all would that include right now?” board member Alan Brown asked.

“Did you guys give any consideration to the insulator services in the district like with Adolescent Support Services, things like that, bring it in-house?” board member Matt Durler asked.

“Those are possibilities, but it also depends on the size of the building,” Clay said. “Depending on which building you look at, some of those are big enough that yes, you could bring those in so those services are there, but some of the other buildings aren’t large enough. Anything can be done, you could add on if you decide to move that all in-house. It just depends on where you look.”

The committee members answered some more questions about square footage of the respective buildings before ultimately saying the preference would be for either the former South Middle School building or the former McKinley Elementary School building. The pros and cons of each were briefly discussed before the board moved on to other business. In other business, the board approved the 2018-19 calendar, an AVID Elementary Path Training for early June in Liberal for 50 staff members, and the annual maintenance for AliO in the amount of $42,250.05, all by a margin of 6-0, with board member Nick Hatcher absent for the evening.

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The High Plains Daily Leader and Southwest Daily Times are published Sunday through Friday and reaches homes throughout the Liberal, Kansas retail trade zone. The Leader & Times is the official newspaper of Seward County, USD No. 480, USD No. 483 and the cities of Liberal and Kismet. The Leader & Times is a member of the Liberal Chamber of Commerce, the Kansas Press Association and the Associated Press.

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